Curious Courtney
Location: Bangor, Maine Date: September 8, 1995 Story Michael Bund had been a first grade teacher at Fourteenth Street Elementary School in Bangor, Maine for eighteen years. On the afternoon of September 8, 1995, the new fall term was ending its first week, and six-year-old Courtney Stevenson and her friends, Joey Dawson and Aaron Dennis, were among the students in Mr. Bund's new class. He was teaching them about eye colors when Courtney dropped her pencil through a little hole in her desk on the floor. She went to get it and her finger got stuck in the hole. She was screaming in pain and called out to Mr. Bund that her finger was stuck. "She shouted out, 'My finger is stuck in that little hole and it won't come out,'" said Mr. Bund, who knew exactly what she meant. He tried to push her finger up but it wouldn't budge. He recently had surgery on his right arm and it was very difficult for him to use his left hand. The principal, Christine McGregor, was notified of the incident when Adam, one of Mr. Bund's students, told her that Courtney's finger was stuck in her desk. "By the time I got there, she was scared and crying. But I figured I could calm her down and would be able to get her finger out and we'd go on our merry way," said Mrs. McGregor. Courtney's finger was very swollen and wedged in so tightly. Mrs. McGregor asked Mr. Bund to get some ice so the swelling would go down. "I felt sorry for her because I imagined the pain she was in at that moment. I know how it feels because I got my finger stuck in a door once and it really hurt," said Aaron. Mrs. McGregor called in the gym teacher to help because he was well schooled in first aid. He tried to put soap on Courtney's finger, but it didn't work. Mr. Bund decided to call Courtney's father, Kevin Stevenson, because they lived close by and to have the remaining students go outside to the playground because he didn't want them to see Courtney scream and cry. The said they had put their fingers in the holes of their desks, but were lucky. Kevin was working at home when Mr. Bund notified him. "I felt very sorry for Courtney because it was the first week of school and I'm trying to meet people and now this has to happen," said Kevin. Mrs. McGregor and the gym teacher could not get Courtney's finger out, so Mrs. McGregor went to her office and called 911. Four minutes after the call, a Bangor fire unit rescue including EMT Brian Higgs arrived on the scene. Mr. Bund gave Courtney a piece of candy to calm her down and Brian told his team that they would have to cut the top of her desk off. EMT Bill Van-Person was also part of the crew. "We realized that we needed more Vaseline to get her finger out and we decided to remove the desk from the little girl," said Bill. Courtney cried out to the paramedics not to cut her finger off and Bill told her that they would't do so and that it would be okay. The paramedics used scissors to cut Courtney's desk. "Once they removed Courtney from her desk, she still had that huge piece of metal on her finger and one of the firefighters gave her a comment, 'That's a nice little ring, Courtney,' and she chuckled," said Kevin. The cut of that piece was very delicate next to her finger. She screamed in pain and they were finally able to remove her finger from it. "When her finger finally got out of the hole, you would've thought it was Christmas and she looked up and was very happy that it was over," said Kevin. "Now that it's all over it seems rather silly that we had to have such a huge response from the fire department for a small little girl, but the firefighters were fantastic," said Mrs. McGregor. Since the incident, Mr. Bund and Mrs. McGregor told Courtney never to put her finger in the hole in her desk again and she promised. "It was really good to see my dad because I love him a lot and he's my daddy and he helped me," said Courtney. Before the first week of school was over, she had made a lasting impression on her new classmates. Mr. Bund's class had been studying the Curious George books and they nicknamed her "Curious Courtney" because she just seemed to be so inquisitive about everything. Category:1995 Category:Maine Category:Entrapment Category:Humorous Rescues Category:School